Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational

[clarkwgriswold]

The Zips head out for Christmas week at the Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational in El Paso. In the opener on Wednesday the 21st, they play 5-7 UC Irvine.  If they beat the Anteaters, they play the winner of the UTEP (2-7)- Maryland Eastern Shore (1-10) game in the championship on Thursday the 22nd.

[Blue & Gold]

Jeez, what a weak field.

 

Given the weak competition, my one hope (besides getting W's) is that we get Utomi playing time.  His D can't possibly be as bad as Josh Williams'.  Get him out there KD and LET HIM PLAY THROUGH MISTAKES!!!  

[LZIp]

Very excited for this.

[kreed5120]

Have to imagine Dambrot expected something better than a 2-7 UTEP team when he agreed to play in this. Irvine, despite not being good actually has some size. Their starting C is 7'2 255 and they have a 6'10 320 pounder on their bench. Akron might actually need to run some offensive plays to get open looks instead of relying solely on Big Dog drawing the constant double team.

[zipsrule]

I did not see any TV listed.  Anyone know if it is being broadcasted or streamed?

[ZachTheZip]

It's incomprehensible to me that we would play in two tournaments in the same season without any TV or streaming options.

[UAZippers]

It looks like the games involving UTEP are streamed at this site, which has a $9.95 subscription fee. 

 

So it looks like no way to watch the UC Irvine game and a paid stream for the second game only if we play UTEP.

Edited December 18, 2016 by UAZippers

[akronzips71]

Once again, welcome to Akron.

You can not make this stuff up.

[zippy5]

This isn't an Akron problem

[skip-zip]

15 hours ago, ZachTheZip said:

It's incomprehensible to me that we would play in two tournaments in the same season without any TV or streaming options.

 

Pretty amazing that we agreed to two tournaments like this.  And made big road trips to do so (especially this upcoming one).  I can't believe we're traveling 2,000 miles for this.

 

This certainly became a garbage tournament.  Who knows if we saw this coming.  And now we run the risk of playing a tournament final against the awful home court team who will certainly be motivated.  

 

 

[kreed5120]

UTEP has averaged 21+ wins over the last 7 seasons and only had 1 losing season in that time. Preseason polls had them finishing 6th in C-USA (for what it's worth Marshall was 4th). WKU was projected to finish 3rd and is currently 4-7 with a loss to Detroit Mercy. It's so hard to project how mid-majors teams will finish year to year. They for the most part don't have the depth of top conference schools so an injury or in the case of UTEP a starter quitting the team 3 games into the season because of a dispute with the coach can quickly derail a season.

[skip-zip]

It doesn't seem like a team headed towards another possible 21+ win season would be picked to finish 6th in their league, and then would suddenly become garbage with the loss of one starter. 

 

These aren't like other games that might have been scheduled long in advance with a lot of unknowns.  This particular tournament didn't even announce it's field until late June.  We had a relatively good idea what we were going to be facing down there.  

[kreed5120]

21+ win season probably not, but an 18-20 win season for them would have been a very realistic forecast coming into this season.  Last year, coincidence enough, UTEP finished 6th in C-USA and went 19-14. Dambrot most definitely didn't expect a 2-7 team that is playing like one of the worst teams in C-USA.

 

Had we gotten that 18-20 win team, this would have been the perfect final OOC game to prep ourselves for the level of competition we'd expect to see out of teams like EMU, Toledo, and CMU come MAC play.

 

Edit: I'm counting 4 Texas players on the roster (Antino, Dalton, Poke, and Utomi) plus Robotham whose from Vegas. I'm counting 12 days between the end of the Sun Bowl Invitational and the Zips next game. Playing this game in El Paso certainly makes it easier for those 5 players to make it home for Christmas if that's the intention. Also, we recruit Texas pretty hard. Perhaps we have a recruit or 2 coming to these games.

Edited December 19, 2016 by kreed5120

[clarkwgriswold]

So the good people of El Paso get a basketball game with 3 sub-.500 teams and a Sun Bowl without McCaffrey!

[skip-zip]

33 minutes ago, clarkwgriswold said:

So the good people of El Paso get a basketball game with 3 sub-.500 teams and a Sun Bowl without McCaffrey!

 

We're a Christmas gift, for sure.  They ought to treat us like royalty.

[kreed5120]

UC Irvine @ 10-2 New Mexico State going to OT

 

Edit: Irvine lost 85-79. They were having a really good shooting night until OT despite getting owned on the glass and committing quite a few turnovers. Hopefully that shooting got out of their system.

Edited December 20, 2016 by kreed5120

[NWAkron]

While we are playing the Anteaters, there are a bunch of away games for MAC teams.  Western Michigan at UCLA?  Kant at Oregon State.  EMU got doubled up by 50 at Syracuse last night.

[kreed5120]

25 minutes ago, NWAkron said:

While we are playing the Anteaters, there are a bunch of away games for MAC teams.  Western Michigan at UCLA?  Kant at Oregon State.  EMU got doubled up by 50 at Syracuse last night.

 

I'm wanting to know the spread on that UCLA-WMU game. It has to be at least 25, right?

 

Playing a bunch of OOC games that you have little to no chance of winning is a quick way of running your program into the ground. Look at Miami. Playing Gonzaga and Creighton was enough when you talk about us taking a paycheck for most likely a double figure loss with slim chance of getting an upset. What we need are some quality home and home series. Marshall was the only home and home this year and I'm not aware of any other future ones set up besides Marshall (not to say they don't exist). Georgia Southern will probably end up being one of the better buy games we've had at the JAR. Not that they are anything special, but they are certainly a step up from the Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Coppin State, or Savannah State that I'm accustomed to seeing.

 

I just wish our athletic department would get creative to bring in better competition. Instead of auctioning off our football team to the highest bidder and lose by 40 we take a little less and agree to play at a place like Pitt or Northwestern. A team we might actually be able to beat in football. We then build a home and home basketball series into said contract. Perhaps Pitt wouldn't do it, but there has to be a team out there somewhere that wants that lucrative 6th or 7th home game in football that would. Another possibility is agreeing to 2 road games in basketball for 1 home game.

 

 

[zippy5]

the MTSU home and home was great, wonder why that went away

[ewbrooman1]

On 12/18/2016 at 6:46 PM, UAZippers said:

It looks like the games involving UTEP are streamed at this site, which has a $9.95 subscription fee. 

 

So it looks like no way to watch the UC Irvine game and a paid stream for the second game only if we play UTEP.

Seems unlikely, that just shows an audio link. This statement on the UTEP basketball site is pretty straight forward.

 

[UAZippers]

11 minutes ago, ewbrooman1 said:

Seems unlikely, that just shows an audio link.

It does look like they have updated their site to remove the video feed. There were originally two feeds for the games: one audio and one video. This is really disappointing.

[Blue & Gold]

Lame sauce 

[Blue & Gold]

 

[Z.I.P.]

On 12/20/2016 at 8:26 AM, NWAkron said:

While we are playing the Anteaters, there are a bunch of away games for MAC teams.  Western Michigan at UCLA?  Kant at Oregon State.  EMU got doubled up by 50 at Syracuse last night.

Last night my TV guide had K-ent State @Oregon St listed at 6:00 on PAC-12 Net.  So, as I was surfing channels searching for the game that is actually tonight(!), I passed through Fox College Sports Atlantic, and Voila! I hit "Zips Basketball With Keith Dambrot" and Joe Dunn.  Only caught the last few minutes, including a feature with the Zips answering the question "What would you be doing if you weren't a basketball player?"  Wasn't aware that Noah was a striker previously.  Call Coach Embick, someone!   The show repeats nationally twice more this week.  Good for recruiting, as I haven't seen any other MAC or regional coaches shows on Fox regional  TV -- not even for Thad Matta's club.

Edit:   BTW -- If KSU can't beat the Beavers they should quit, as OSU is a pathetic excuse for a PAC-12 team, losing last week at home to Savannah State.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Z.I.P.

[Z.I.P.]

On 12/20/2016 at 9:51 AM, kreed5120 said:

 

I'm wanting to know the spread on that UCLA-WMU game. It has to be at least 25.

 

 

I watched the Broncos play @UWashington last weekend.  They led most of the game before going cold the last 3-4 minutes and losing by single digits.  Washington has a freshman guard, Markelle Fultz who is virtually as good as Lonzo Ball of UCLA.  However, the Huskies have nothing else --and I mean NOTHING.  They couldn't beat their women's team without Fultz.  As far as WMU playing the Bruins at Pauley Pavilion, that is a close homecoming for Coach Hawkins.  He grew up in Ventura County, and while this may be hard to believe, he is a surfer.  Imagine a minion on a surf board!  I'll give WMU 30 points unless the Alfords are in the giving spirit.